In the last week a great change took place in the sentiment of the university--the hoping against hope that often arrives with the intensity of combat. At this time Harvard and Yale were still reluctantly estranged, due to a purely hypothetical question as to which side had begun a certain historic slaughter, and the big game of the season was with Princeton, which, under the leadership of Garry Cockerell, Dink's first captain at Lawrenceville, had established a record of unusual power and brilliancy. Up to Monday of the last week, the opinion around the campus was unanimous that the day of defeat had arrived; but, with the opening of the week and the flocking in of the old players, a new spirit was noticeable, and (among the freshmen) a tentative loosening of the purse-strings on news of extra-insulting challenges from the South. At the practise, the season's marked division among the coaches was forgotten, and the field was alive with frantic assistants. The scrimmage between the varsity and the scrub took on a savageness that was sometimes difficult to control. The team, facing the impossible, with eagerness to respond, had clearly overworked itself. Stover himself weighed a bare one hundred and forty, an unspeakable depravity which he carefully concealed. Still, the team began to feel a new impulse and a new unity, inspired by the confidence of the returned heroes. The grim silence of the past began to be broken by hopeful comments. "By George, I believe there's something in those boys." "We've come up smiling before." "We may do it again." "Shouldn't be surprised if they gave those Princeton Tigers the fight of their lives." "Oh, they'll fight it out all right." One or two trick plays were perpetrated behind closed gates, and a thorough drill in a new method of breaking up the Princeton formation for a kick, under the instruction of returning scouts. The team itself began to question and wonder. "That fellow Rivers certainly has stiffened us up in the center of the line," said Regan, between plays, in one of his rare moments of loquacity. "I've learned more in three days than in the whole darn season." "You've got to hold for my kicks," said Stover, submitting to the sponge which Clancy, the trainer, was daubing over his face. "We'll hold." "What do you really think, Tom?" said Stover as they stood a little apart, waiting for the scrimmage to be resumed. "Do you think there's a chance?" "I'm not thinking," said Regan, in his direct way. "Haven't any business to think. But we're getting together, there's no doubt of that. If we can't win, why, we'll lose as we ought to, and that's something."